Will
Ukraine make it? Some conditions necessary for Ukraine’s current reforms drive
to succeed look more promising than in 2013, before the Euromaidan revolution
and war with Russia. Ukraine presently has not only its most pro-European
parliament and reform-oriented government since achieving independence in 1991.
There are at least four other significant shifts in domestic politics that,
taken together, render an equation of pre- and post-revolutionary Ukrainian
society misleading.

First:
Civil society as a major political factor

Following
the Revolution of Dignity, the impact of Ukrainian civil society on the
country’s legislative and executive decision-making processes has grown
significantly. The most visible sign of this is the election of 19 prominent
civic activists to parliament. These Euromaidan campaigners form the core of a
new inter-party group calling itself “Euro-Optimists” consisting of 27 MPs. The
“Euro-Optimists” have taken on the tasks of pushing implementation the EU
Association Agreement and preventing oligarchs from exerting influence on
legislation. Not only has the presence of civil society organizations in public
discourse noticeably increased, but also has their interaction with civil
servants and political actors in- and outside Ukraine intensified.

Second:
International players with more domestic political sway

The role
played by foreign reform-drivers, both governmental and non-governmental, in
preparing, shaping and evaluating Ukrainian economic, foreign and domestic
policies has also grown since 2013. First and foremost, this applies to the
European Union and its member states. Drawing on the large, almost fully
ratified Association Agreement and the new common EU-Ukrainian institutions it
stipulates (Association Council, Association Committee, etc.), Brussels is
playing an ever more prominent role in Kyiv’s daily political life. The EU has
also recently established – in addition to its regular delegation at Kyiv – a
special and well-staffed observer mission in Ukraine.

One of the
few positive aspects of the current severe economic crisis is the International
Monetary Fund’s increased leverage over implementation of long-overdue
macroeconomic reforms, spurred by the dire state of Ukrainian public finances.
Moreover, other Western organizations, media, foundations, aid programs,
developmental agencies, and think tanks have an increased interest in Ukraine,
as a result of the Euromaidan and Russian-Ukrainian war. This has created a new
atmosphere in Kyiv as well as more intensive interaction between Ukrainians and
the West resulting in more favorable conditions for sustainable transformation
of Ukraine.

Third: The
Ukrainian diaspora as an accelerator for change

The role
of the large émigré community, comprising around 20 million descendants of
Ukraine living abroad, in their native country’s politics and society has
markedly increased thanks to national mobilization triggered by the Euromaidan.
Among others, it has been expressing itself in the diaspora’s ongoing support
of Ukraine’s defensive efforts since the summer of 2014. The appointment of
Natalie Jaresko, an American economic expert with Ukrainian roots, as finance
minister – perhaps the most challenging Ukrainian government position –
exemplifies the new level of involvement by often well-educated Ukrainian
repatriates from the West.

Euromaidan
led to substantially closer ties between different Ukrainian expatriate groups
around the world, as well between these communities and Ukraine’s government
and civil society. The diaspora’s new presence in Ukrainian domestic affairs
reinforces the nations’ ability and will to carry out sweeping reforms.

Fourth: The
war as a stagnation-preventer

The role
of the war in the Donbas, which Ukraine has effectively been fighting against
Russia since late spring 2014, is profound, but not in all regards negative.
While catastrophic for many families, polarizing for political discourse, and
corrosive for society, at large, in some respects, the war is also having a
disciplining and consolidating effect. One could even claim that the war –
abstractly expressed – has positively impacted Ukrainian political
nation-building.

The war
creates feelings of national solidarity across different social strata, a
patriotic focus among citizens on governmental capacity, and a state of
permanent mobilization. The human and material sacrifices made during war also
generate new impatience with the sluggish realization of reforms, as well as
growing intolerance towards corruption and cronyism in the executive,
legislature and courts. The war is prompting the state and civil society to
work together and spawning cooperation between various Ukrainian societal
actors across regional, ethnic, religious, social and political lines.
Paradoxically, the war thereby is performing a function reminiscent of the
effect of EU membership perspective for a post-communist country. Rather than
an attractive vision for the future, an existential danger in the present is
today pulling previously separate political and societal actors together.

The improved
attendant political circumstances and societal framework for radical reforms do
not mean that these will be rapidly and comprehensively implemented. Instead,
Ukraine’s transformation will be erratic as well as accompanied by many
scandals and occasional setbacks. Nevertheless, the new background of Ukrainian
political and administrative decision-making outlined above make it unlikely
that reform initiatives will simply evaporate, as frequently happened in prior
years. The social context has so fundamentally changed that the still extant
opponents of reform – new oligarchs and old bureaucrats, above all – will find
it more difficult to water down or subvert reforms, as they successfully did in
the past. Against this backdrop, it is likely that a deep socio-economic
transition of Ukraine will be carried out, sooner rather than later.

Nonetheless,
a cloudy future

What could
happen, however, is that even properly enacted reforms may not result in
substantial economic growth, as long as Russia pursues its “hybrid war” against
Ukraine designed to cause continuous instability, uncertainty and
indeterminacy. Improved legal conditions for foreign investors, for example,
could be ineffective if Kyiv cannot reasonably guarantee the physical security
of investments into buildings and equipment in Ukraine. Not by accident, this
dilemma applies, first and foremost, to the Russian-speaking regions of
rump-Ukraine. They are located in geographic proximity to the regular Russian
troops and irregular armed formations stationed in the area near the
Russian-Ukrainian border, the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics
and Crimea. As long as the social, political and business climate in Ukraine is
marked by fear of more Russian escalation, invasion, occupation, annexation
or/and expropriation, a sustainable economic recovery cannot be expected. But Ukraine's state – reformed or not – cannot survive for long without massive
domestic and foreign investment. If Russia does not cease its subversion of
social stability and state security in Ukraine, even a thoroughly reformed
Ukrainian state formally ready for EU accession would be
doomed to failure.

Translated
from German by Andrew Kinder, University of Cologne, Germany. An edited version
appeared first on the website of the Atlantic Council of the United States.